George W. Bush on Homeland Security

President of the United States, Former Republican Governor (TX)

Bush Doctrine: Put state sponsors of terrorism on notice

We decided to put state sponsors on notice: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
The President paused over that line and looked at me. I asked him if he felt that he needed to say that now. He said that he did but asked if I had a different view.
I told him that I thought he had to say it in the first message because later on it would lost its impact. I consulted with the Vice President and called
Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld and read the line to them. Everyone agreed, and that line became known as one of the most important elements of the "Bush Doctrine."

Geneva convention does not apply to al Qaeda & Taliban

A few months after September 11, President Bush sent out a "mass memo" that lays out why the al Qaeda and Taliban detainees were "unlawful combatants" and so the Geneva Convention calling for humane treatment of POWs did not apply to them.
Well, if they're not covered by an international agreement, shouldn't they be covered by the laws of the United States and our Constitution and Bill of Rights? My point being, this situation has to fall under SOMEBODY'S law. Bush wrote:

Pursuant to my authority as Commander of Chief,

I accept the legal constitution that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world because among other reasons, al
Qaeda is not a High Contracting Party to Geneva.

I determine that he Taliban detainees are unlawful combatants and, therefore, do not qualify as prisoners of war.

Post-9-11: authorized attacks on terrorists amid civilians

After 9/11, Bush's Justice Dept. wrote up a long memo with the subject line: "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities Within the US." The whole concept basically shreds our Bill of Rights. In short, "constitutional rules
regulating law enforcement activity are not applicable." The military could even "attack civilian targets where suspected terrorists were thought to be." And later, "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need
to wage war successfully."

Where does it say that, if you call something "terrorism," the Constitution and the Bill of Rights can be made null and void? All they've got to do is say the word and they can put you under surveillance without a warrant.
To me, this smacks of an attack on the foundations of democracy that plays right into the HANDS of terrorists. It also sets a precedent for the kinds of tactics we went to see at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere.

One provision created a little discomfort at home. The PATRIOT Act allowed the government to seek warrants to examine the business records of suspected terrorists, such as credit card receipts, apartment leases, and library
records. As a former librarian, Laura didn't like the idea of federal agents snooping around libraries. I didn't, either. But the intelligence community had serious concerns about terrorists using library computers to communicate. Library records had
played a role in several high-profile cases, such as the Zodiac gunman murders in California. The last thing I wanted was to allow the freedom and access to information provided by American libraries to be utilized against us by al Qaeda.

2001: Overturning FISA review authorized by war resolution

NSA had the capability to monitor those al Qaeda phone calls into the United States before 9/11. But he didn't have the legal authority to do it without receiving a court order, a process that could be difficult and slow.

I asked the
White House counsel's office and the Justice Department to study whether I could authorize the NSA to monitor al Qaeda communications into and out of the country without FISA warrants.

Both told me I could.
They concluded that conducting surveillance against our enemies in war fell within the authorities granted by the congressional war resolution and the constitutional authority of the commander in chief.

Before I approved the Terrorist Surveillance
Program, I wanted to ensure there were safeguards to prevent abuses. I had no desire to turn the NSA into an Orwellian Big Brother. The Terrorist Surveillance Program had been carefully designed to protect the civil liberties of innocent people.

Preventive War doctrine seen as path to security

Consider the first scholarly work on the roots of George W. Bush's preventive war doctrine, issued in September 2002 in preparation for the invasion of Iraq--which was then already under way, [despite Bush] pretending to be seeking a diplomatic
settlement. The study was written by the distinguished Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis, and has been much admired in the general and scholarly literature. The core principle of the Bush doctrine, as Gaddis writes approvingly, is that "expansion,
we have assumed, is the path to security, "Gaddis traces this doctrine to the "lofty, idealistic tradition of John Quincy Adams and Woodrow Wilson."

The Clinton doctrine, presented to Congress, was that the United States is entitled to resort to "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhabited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources."

OpEd: innovation in torture is to have US agents doing it

Even without inquiry, it was reasonable to suppose that Guantanamo was a torture chamber. Why else send prisoners where they would be beyond the reach of the law--incidentally, a place that Washington is using in violation of a treaty that was forced on
Cuba at the point of a gun? Security reasons are alleged, but they are hard to take seriously. The same expectations held for secret prisons and rendition, and were fulfilled.

Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld et al, did introduce some important innovations.
Ordinarily, torture is farmed out to subsidiaries under US supervision, not carried out by Americans directly in the government-established torture chambers. What the
Obama [ban on torture] ostensibly knocks off is that small percentage of torture now done by Americans while retaining the overwhelming bulk of the system's torture, which is done by foreigners under US patronage.

Supreme Court ordered habeas for Gitmo detainees

In the important case of Boumediene v. Bush in June 2008, the Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional the Bush administration claim that prisoners in Guantanamo are not entitled to the right of habeas corpus. Seeking to "preserve the power to abduct
people from around the world" and imprison them without due process, the Bush administration decided to ship them to Bagram, in Afghanistan, treating "the Boumediene ruling, grounded in our most basic constitutional guarantees, as though it was some sort
of a silly game--fly your abducted prisoners to Guantanamo and they have constitutional rights, but fly them instead to Bagram and you can disappear them forever with no judicial process."

Obama adopted the Bush position. In March, a
Bush-appointed federal judge "rejected the Bush /Obama position and held that the rationale of Boumediene applies every bit as much to Bagram as it does to Guantanamo."

OpEd: Focused on denial of 9/11 warnings despite warnings

The way I see it, with all the advance warnings about a terrorist attack, a fair number of Bush's team should have gotten the axe. Except, right up to the president himself, it was all about denial. Here was Bush in 2001: "Had I had any inkling whatsoeve
that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country."

Israel sent two senior agents of the Mossad to Washington in August 2001 to "alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as
many as 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation." Eight months before the attacks, French intelligence warned the U.S. in nine different reports about "Airplane Hijacking Plans by Radical Islamists" connected to bin Laden and the Taliban.
FBI agents working out of the Minneapolis and Phoenix offices tried to alert their superiors.

Terrorists aren't POWs, so not entitled to Geneva Convention

Guantanamo [prisoners] were not POWs in the traditional sense. Those apprehended were not soldiers of a sovereign nation. Our approach to the treatment of those labeled "unlawful enemy combatants," as opposed to the traditional "prisoners of war," began
to concern me when it became clear no plan existed other than indefinite if not permanent imprisonment. The administration argued that because these people are not state-sponsored, they are not entitled to the usual protections of the Geneva
Convention, and have no rights to our time-honored (and constitutionally guaranteed) principle of habeas corpus. The White House had been staunchly opposed to giving detainees access to civilian courts, later arguing that military tribunals sufficed.
Constitutional lawyers argued--and the Supreme Court agreed--that such a position was impermissible and that habeas corpus extends to those captured in a time of war even if they don't fit into traditional categories.

Created DHS; reorganization since 1947 creation of DoD

On June 7, 2002, Pres. Bush announced the creation of a new cabinet position, the most dramatic reorganization of the federal government since 1947, when the National Defense Act took the Air Force out from under army supervision, combined the War and
Navy Departments into the Department of Defense, and created the CIA. The president said, "I do not believe that anyone could have prevented the horror of September 11, yet we know that thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us, and this
terrible knowledge requires us to act differently."

The new Department of Homeland Security would be composed of nearly 180,000 federal employees, drawn from parts or all of 22 units of government, including the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, element
of the INS, security guards at airports, and Customs. The department would have an initial budget of $37.5 billion. Even so, it was less than the budget of the Department of Education and less than 1/10 of what the Department of Defense spends in a year.

2002 USA Freedom Corps included Peace Corps & AmeriCorps

Very few of us recall that in his 2002 State of the Union Address, President Bush announced the USA Freedom Corps and asked all of us to serve our country by volunteering. The USA Freedom Corps, which most of us know nothing about, consists of the
Peace Corps, the Citizens Corps, AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, and the Senior Corps. The last three are administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, which supports service and volunteering by functioning as the country's
biggest grant maker.

During the Depression, the WPA provided jobs to lift Americans out of poverty. Today we need national-service jobs so that more Americans can give back out of their abundance' others still need to be lifted out
of poverty. A year of civilian service can be a path for those who have dropped out of school or who are trapped in dead-end jobs to gain some marketable skills and make a fresh start.

Our enemy hates freedom; our enemy hates innocent life

"We're under attack because we love freedom, is why we're under attack. And our enemy hates freedom. They hate and we love. We differ from our enemy because we love. We not only love our freedoms and love our values, we love life itself.
Our enemy hates innocent life."--George W. Bush, addressing schoolchildren, September 23, 2002 "This is a man who cannot stand what we stand for. He hates the fact, like al-Qaeda does, that we love freedom.
See, they can't stand that."--George W. Bush, on Saddam, October 31, 2002 "They hate things; we love things.
They act out of hatred; we don't seek revenge, we seek justice out of love."--George W. Bush, August 29, 2002

First reaction to 9/11: get military ready on many fronts

Bush told the military to "be ready." Just 3 weeks [after 9/11], our military took the offensive in Afghanistan with help from Great Britain & the support of a broad international coalition that would grow to more than 90 countries.

The administration
also took action at home. In the immediate aftermath, there was no higher priority than the response and recovery efforts, and helping NYC rebuild. Perhaps most significant was the effort to clamp down on those permitted to come into the country.

Source: What Happened, by Scott McClellan, p.108
, May 28, 2008

Believed military was needed for Katrina response

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the discussion then turned to the possibility of federalizing the response and asserting US military control over New Orleans, an option that had been under
serious discussion since earlier in the week. Bush believed that the military was the only organization disciplined and organized enough to come in and stabilize the situation quickly.

Source: What Happened, by Scott McClellan, p.288
, May 28, 2008

FactCheck: Wiretapping authority foiled no terrorist plots

Bush argued for extension of wiretap authority for US officials, but misleadingly claimed “we” broke up a plot to blow up airplanes headed to the US from Europe. Bush said, “In the past six years, we have stopped numerous attacks, including a plot to fly
a plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles and another to blow up passenger jets bound for America over the Atlantic.”

The London plot, however, was actually broken up in August 2006 by British law enforcement, according to news accounts at the
time and also according to Bush himself. If wiretaps by US officials played any role, no administration official has yet said so publicly, despite plenty of opportunity.

To be sure, at other times Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff has said
there was some involvement by the US, though he has yet to say what that role was. We find no public claim that the special wiretap program secretly authorized by Pres. Bush after the 2001 terrorist attacks had anything to do with foiling the plot.

2001: Withdraw from outdated & dangerous ABM Treaty

The Bush-Putin meeting focused largely on strategic issues, as Bush explained to Putin we were leaving the ABM Treaty. Putin responded that he would not object if we withdrew, but he did not see that the treaty actually limited what we wanted to do.
If so, why withdraw? Bush candidly explained that our military had not had a full opportunity to decide on offensive numbers. In the subsequent press conference, Bush called the treaty not only "outdated," but "dangerous."

Source: Surrender is Not an Option, by John Bolton, p. 69
, Nov 6, 2007

OpEd: War on Terror means Geneva Convention don't apply

Before the Supreme Court ruling in "Hamdan v. Rumsfeld," Pres. Bush had seized unprecedented war powers. He rejected domestic law and international treaties on methods of interrogation--a policy that led to allegations internationally that Americans
endorse torture. The president has maintained that the US is in a state of war against terrorism, and therefore he has the authority to hold enemy combatants indefinitely without trial.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said that the president needed
the approval of Congress to pursue these measures. The president's quick response was to propose legislation that would have Congress rubber-stamp his initial practices--reinstating the commissions as originally structured and redefining the
Geneva conventions by weakening its protections. He demanded a free hand in interrogations--a circumstance, we know from the examples of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and secret prisons around the globe, that was deeply troubling.

War on Terror is a decisive ideological struggle

It remains the policy of this government to use every lawful and proper tool of intelligence, diplomacy, law enforcement, and military action to do our duty, to find these enemies, and to protect the American people.

This war is more than a clash of
arms--it is a decisive ideological struggle, and the security of our nation is in the balance. To prevail, we must remove the conditions that inspire blind hatred, and drove 19 men to get onto airplanes and come to kill us. What every terrorist fears
most is human freedom. Free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies--and most will choose a better way when they are given a chance. So we advance our own security interests by helping moderates, reformers, and brave voices for
democracy. The great question of our day is whether America will help men and women in the Middle East to build free societies and share in the rights of all humanity. And I say, for the sake of our own security--we must.

92,000 more in Armed Forces; plus Civilian Reserve Corps

The war on terror we fight today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others. I propose to establish a special advisory council on the war on terror, made up of leaders in Congress from both
political parties.

One of the first steps we can take together is to add to the ranks of our military--so that the American Armed Forces are ready for all the challenges ahead. Tonight I ask the Congress to authorize an increase in the size of our
active Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 in the next five years. A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on
the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. And it would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

2004 anti-Bush TV ad: AWOL from National Guard

George Bush got out of college in 1968, the height of the draft. He used his father's contacts to get a spot in the Texas guard. He then wanted to go work on an Alabama senate race. He went to Alabama for one year. He didn't show up [for National Guard
duty].

My AWOL attack generated such intense buzz [that the press] asked the President directly if he could defend himself. "I served in the National Guard," Bush said. "I flew F-102 aircraft. I got an honorable discharge. I've heard this ever since
I started running for office. I put in my time, proudly so."

Q: "There's no evidence that you reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972."

A: "Yea, they're just wrong. There may be no evidence, but I did report; otherwise,
I wouldn't have been honorably discharged."

Bush could not defend himself against my daily AWOL attacks for the simple reason that his past was indefensible. His approval rating fell [that month] from 58% to 50%.

9/11: First Lady served as "Comforter-in-Chief"

In the aftermath of 9/11, there was great turmoil and uncertainty across the country as well, and my brother--and our First Lady--sought to comfort our nation while also showing our resolve to the world. Laura's calm demeanor and nurturing personality
reassured us all. One of the media outlets dubbed the First Lady the "Comforter in Chief" for the way she helped to pull us all through. On September 14, the president and First Lady led the nation in prayer at a service held at the National Cathedral.

No nuclear restrictions on India, even though NPT rejected

In rejecting or evading almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the past 50 years, the US has now become the prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. Former secretary of defense Robert McNamara summed up his concerns in the
May/June 2005 issue of "Foreign Policy" magazine: "I would characterize current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous."

India conducted nuclear test explosions in 1998.
The key inducement for NPT membership is that those in compliance will have exclusive access to highly sensitive nuclear technology. As a further move that weakened the non-proliferation effort,
President Bush has announced plans to lift these restrictions and grant this privilege to India, which has rejected the NPT. This is a clear incitement for other nations to violate the treaty's restraints.

OpEd: permanent Patriot Act legalizes abuse of civil liberty

Following the attacks of 9/11, the US government overreacted by detaining more than 1,200 innocent men throughout America. Almost all of them were Arabs or Muslims.

To legalize such abuses of civil liberties, the Patriot Act was hurriedly enacted, with
a number of temporary provisions scheduled to expire in 2005. The president has called for the law to be expanded and made permanent, but even the conservative "patriots" have deplored such provisions as authorization for federal agents to search
people's homes and businesses secretly, to confiscate property without any deadline or without giving notice that the intrusion has taken place, and to collect without notice personal information on American citizens, including their medical histories,
books checked out of libraries, and goods they purchase. The government can now seize an entire database--all the medical records of a hospital or all the files of an immigration group--when it is investigating a single person.

Signing statement: Only president decides which intel to use

Aug. 5, 2004: The military cannot add to its files any illegally gathered intelligence, including information obtained about
Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches.

Bush’s signing statement: Only the president, as commander in chief, can tell the military whether or not it can use any specific piece of intelligence.

FactCheck: Yes, there are more democracies now, but not Iraq

The President spoke of the growing number of nations in the world that live under democratic governments, saying, ?In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today, there are 122.
We’re writing a new chapter in the story of self-government“ in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The President’s numbers come from Freedom House, a nonprofit group that tracks levels of democracy and freedom around the globe.
In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today, there are 122. And we’re writing a new chapter in the story of self-government -- with women lining up to vote in
Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom.

Support democratic reform across the broader Middle East

Our offense against terror involves more than military action. Ultimately, the only way to defeat the terrorists is to defeat their dark vision of hatred & fear by offering the hopeful alternative of political freedom & peaceful change. The US supports
democratic reform across the broader Middle East. Elections are vital, but they’re only the beginning. Raising up a democracy requires the rule of law, protection of minorities and strong, accountable institutions that last longer than a single vote.

Source: 2006 State of the Union Address
, Jan 31, 2006

Post-WWII world has grown from 24 lonely democracies to 122

In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today, there are 122. And we’re writing a new chapter in the story of self-government -- with women lining up to vote in
Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking their liberty with purple ink, and men and women from Lebanon to Egypt debating the rights of individuals and the necessity of freedom.

Source: 2006 State of the Union speech
, Jan 31, 2006

A president must not shift in the wind

Here's an excerpt from Bush's address at Tinker Field in Orlando, Florida, on October 30, 2004:

"A president must not shift in the wind; a president has to make tough decisions and stand by them.
Especially in a time of war, mixed signals only confuse our friends and embolden our enemies. All progress on every other issue depends on the safety of our citizens.
Americans will go to the polls Tuesday in a time of war and ongoing threats. The terrorists who killed thousands of innocent people are still dangerous, and they're determined to strike. The most solemn duty of the American
president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty or weakness in these troubling times, the world will drift toward tragedy. This is not going to happen on my watch."

Has used Patriot Act to thwart several terrorist attacks

Will we experience another9/11? Who knows. It is not as if the bad guys have not been trying. Dozens of attacks have been foiled. The most notable--the attempt to blow up the Brooklyn bridge--came to the government’s attention through some of the very
provisions of the Patriot Act the Left would like to repeal. But as President Bush says, in our efforts to discover and stop attacks, we have to be right every time; the terrorists only have to be right once. This is an intolerable way to have to live.

The better course of action would be to disempower terrorists by denying them funding. In the near term, the Bush administration has shown a willingness to adopt measures to close down charities that pass their donations to terrorists;
these have been effective. In the long term, however, the only way to avoid living under a cloud of Islamic fundamentalist terrorist is to stop buying foreign oil.

We are not going to have a draft

Q: How do you intend to maintain our military presence without reinstituting a draft?

A: We’re not going to have a draft, period. The all-volunteer Army works. It works particularly when we pay our troops well, it works when we make sure they’ve got
housing, like we have done in the last military budgets. An all-volunteer Army is best-suited to fight the new wars of the 21st century, which is to be specialized and to find these people as they hide around the world. We don’t need mass armies anymore.
We’re beginning to transform our military, and by that I mean we’re moving troops out of Korea and replacing them with more effective weapons. So, the answer to your question is, we’re withdrawing, not from the world, we’re withdrawing manpower so they
can be stationed here in America so there’s less rotation so life is easier on their families and, therefore, more likely to be - we’ll be more likely to be able to keep people in the all-volunteer Army.

We’ve tripled the homeland security budget

KERRY: 95% of our containers coming into this country are not inspected today. When you get on an airplane, your bag is x-rayed but the cargo hold isn’t x-rayed. Bush chose a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans over getting that equipment out into the
homeland as fast as possible. We have bridges and tunnels that aren’t being secured. Chemical plants, nuclear plants that aren’t secured. Hospitals that are overcrowded with their emergency rooms. If we had a disaster today, could they handle it?

BUSH: We’ve tripled the homeland security budget from $10 to $30 billion. We’ll do everything we can to protect the homeland. We need good intelligence. Right after 1993 he voted to cut the intelligence budget by $7.5 billion.

KERRY:
Pres. Bush just said to you that we’ve added money. The test is not if you’ve added money. The test is have you done everything possible to make America secure. He chose a tax cut for wealthy Americans over the things that I listed to you.

Decreased funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation

KERRY: Right now Bush is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn’t make sense. You talk about mixed messages. We’re telling other people,
“You can’t have nuclear weapons,” but we’re pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using. We’re going to get the job of containing all of that nuclear material in Russia done in four years. And we’re going to build the strongest
international network to prevent nuclear proliferation.

BUSH: We’ve decreased funding for dealing with nuclear proliferation about 35% since I’ve been the president. The biggest threat facing this country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of
a terrorist network. And that’s why proliferation is one of the centerpieces of a multi-prong strategy to make the country safer. Over 60 nations involved with disrupting the trans-shipment of information and/or weapons of mass destruction materials.

OpEd: Pre-emptive war is not America's way

Conservatives credit the Reagan Doctrine with playing a decisive role in America's Cold War victory. Yet Reagan never asserted a US right to launch preemptive strikes or preventive wars on nations that had not attacked the US.

Bush's aides believe a
right of preemptive attack and preventive war is inherent in the national right to self-defense. In the Cuban missile crisis, they argue, Kennedy was prepared to attack the missile sites in Cuba rather than let them become operational. True, but the
Soviet missile threat in Cuba appeared both grave and imminent. Those were nuclear missiles that could strike Washington from their Cuban bases in 20 minutes.

Preemptive strikes have been the war options exercised by aggressor nations like Japan at
Port Arthur in 1904 and at Pearl Harbor, and Hitler's Germany against Poland. Or they have been the first resort of nations that cannot afford to lose a battle, like Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967. But preemptive strikes have never been America's way.

Deterrence won't work against rogue nations

In 2002, the White House issued a 33-page National Security Strategy:

"Deterrence is less likely to work against leaders of rogue states more willing to take risks, gambling with the lives of their people, and the wealth of their nations. Our enemies
see Weapons of Mass Destruction as weapons of choice. These weapons may allow these states to attempt to blackmail the US, to prevent us from deterring or repelling the aggressive behavior of rogue states. Deterrence has worked.
With the exception of Korea, 1950, where Stalin and Kim Il Sung, believing we would not fight, miscalculated, deterrence has never failed us. No rogue state has ever attacked the US--for fear of the massive retaliation that would surely follow."

From the passage above, the Bush administration appears to fear that if nations like Iran acquire nuclear weapons, they will use them not to attack us but to curtail our freedom of action and end our dominance of their region.

OpEd: Reagan never asserted pre-emptive right

Under the Truman Doctrine, we went to war in Korea. Under it, JFK and LBJ took us to war in Vietnam. The Reagan Doctrine was a "rollback" strategy under which the US gave aid to anti-Communist rebels fighting Soviet vassal states on the periphery of
empire in Nicaragua, Angola, and Afghanistan.

Conservatives credit Reagan and the Reagan Doctrine with playing a decisive role in America's Cold War victory. Yet Reagan never asserted a US right to launch preemptive strikes or preventive wars on
nations that had not attacked the US.

Bush's aides believe a right of preemptive attack and preventive war is inherent in the national right of self-defense. Preemptive strikes have been the war options exercised by aggressor nations like Japan at
Port Arthur in 1904 and at Pearl Harbor, and Hitler's Germany against Poland. Or they have been the first resort of nations that cannot afford to lose a battle, like Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967. But preemptive strikes have never been America's way.

2000: Warned by Clinton that problem was Al Qaeda, not Iraq

President-elect Bush came to the White House for the same meeting I had had with his father 8 years earlier. We talked about the campaign, White House operations, and national security. He was putting together an experienced team from past Republican
administrations who believed that the biggest security issues were the need for national missile defense and Iraq. I told him that based on the last 8 years, I thought his biggest security problems, in order, would be Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; the
absence of peace in the Middle East; the standoff between nuclear powers in India and Pakistan; and the ties of the Pakistanis to the Taliban and al Qaeda; North Korea; and then Iraq. I said that my biggest disappointment was not getting bin Laden,
that we still might achieve an agreement in the Middle East, and that we had almost tied up a deal with North Korea to end its missile program.

He listened to what I had to say without much comment, then changed the subject to how I did the job.

Lack of Russian reaction to 9/11 shows Cold War is over

When Bush chose to be serious, he was fine. He said it was interesting Putin himself made sure the Russians didn't react last week, a clear sign the Cold War was over. Both he and Powell were really worried about Pakistan and wanted [British Prime
Minister Tony Blair]'s take on how best to help. He said they were going to go for the Taliban after the ultimatum, said the country was run by a bunch of nuts and we had to get a new government in there.
He said he had really beaten up on [Israeli leader] Sharon who was clearly trying to use this to go after [Palestinian leader] Arafat. 'I said Arafat is not bin Laden and you do nothing.' [Russian leader] Putin wanted to use it to go after
Chechnya even harder. He said they feared Hollywood was the next target because it was high profile, Jewish and decadent. They also had intelligence they would go for Airforce One.

Bush’s stated military service record is incorrect

Five months after the Globe first reported discrepancies [in Bush’s military service record], Bush’s biography on his presidential campaign Web site remains unchanged, stating that he served as a pilot in the Texas Guard from 1968 to 1973.

In fact,
Bush only flew from June 1970 until April 1972. That month he ceased flying altogether, two years before his military commitment ended, an unusual step that has left some veteran fighter pilots puzzled.

A group of Vietnam veterans recently offered
a $3,500 reward for anyone who can verify Bush’s claim that he performed service at a Montgomery air guard unit in 1972, when Bush was temporarily in Alabama working on a political campaign. So far, no one has come forward.

A Bush campaign spokesman acknowledged last week that he knows of no witnesses who can attest to Bush’s attendance at drills after he returned to Houston in late 1972 and before his early release from the Guard in September 1973.

AWOL in Air Guard? Maybe not, but didn’t meet obligations

There is strong evidence that Bush performed no military service, as was required, when he moved from Houston to Alabama to work on a US Senate campaign from May to November 1972. There are no records of any service and the commanding officer of the unit
Bush was assigned to said he never saw him. Bush was suspended from flight duty for not taking his annual flight physical.

The Bush campaign’s initial explanation for the lapse “incomplete records,” it now admits, was wrong. An Air Reserve official
said last week that they now believe that Bush met minimum drill requirements before his discharge.

The result is that Bush’s discharge was “honorable.” Other current and retired Air Force officers said Bush’s military records are much like those
of countless other Guardsmen at the time: guardsmen who lost interest in their units, and commanders who found it easier to muster them out than hold them to a commitment many made to avoid Vietnam.

Opposed Somalia intervention when it became nation-building

Somalia started off as a humanitarian mission then changed into a nation-building mission and that’s where the mission went wrong. The mission was changed. And as a result, our nation paid a price, and so I don’t think our troops ought to be used for
what’s called nation building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war. I think our troops ought to be used to help overthrow a dictator when it’s in our best interests. But in this case, it was a nation-building exercise.

Source: Presidential Debate at Wake Forest University
, Oct 11, 2000

Be world’s peacemaker instead of world’s policeman

I want to rebuild our military to keep the peace. I want to have a strong hand when it comes to the US and world affairs. I don’t want to try to put our troops in all places at all times. I don’t want to be the world’s policeman. I want to be the world’s
peacemaker by having a military of high morale and a military that’s well-equipped. I want to have antiballistic missile systems to protect ourselves and our allies from a rogue nation that may try to hold us hostage or blackmail a friend.

Source: Presidential debate, Boston MA
, Oct 3, 2000

Rebuild military so it can fulfill mission to prevent war

I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening. And so I take my responsibility seriously. And it starts with making sure we rebuild our military. Morale in today’s military is low. We’re
having trouble meeting recruiting goals. Some of our troops are not well-equipped. I believe we’re overextended in too many places. I want to rebuild the military power. It starts with a billion dollar pay raise for the men and women who
wear the uniform to make sure our troops are well-housed and well-equipped; bonus plans to keep some of our high-skilled
folks in the services; and a commander in chief who clearly sets the mission.

Bush says military not ready; Pentagon disagrees

Despite Pentagon assurances that all of the U.S. Army’s divisions are “fit to fight and ready to deploy,” Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush refused Friday to concede that the U.S. military is combat-ready. “No, I would not concede that
necessarily. I’m amazed that they would put out a statement right after our convention” The U.S. Army said Friday that Bush was wrong when he said in his speech Thursday night to the Republican National Convention
that two of the Army’s 10 divisions were not ready to fight. Bush had said: “If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report
‘Not ready for duty, sir.’” But Maj. Thomas Collins, an Army spokesman, told CNN: “All 10 Army divisions are combat-ready, fully able to meet their war-fighting mission.”

Source: CNN.com
, Aug 4, 2000

Post-Vietnam: just cause; clear goal; overwhelming victory

A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam. When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming.

I will work to reduce nuclear weapons and nuclear
tension in the world -- to turn these years of influence into decades of peace. And my administration will deploy missile defenses to guard against attack and blackmail. Now is the time, not to defend outdated treaties, but to defend the American people.

Source: Speech to Republican National Convention
, Aug 3, 2000

Lowest possible number of nukes consistent with security

Bush proposed building a defensive system that would cover all 50 states and could be extended to protect allies in Europe, the Mideast & Asia. In addition to the possibility of large unilateral arms cuts, he said most American nuclear weapons should be
removed from hair-trigger alert status. Bush said he wanted to reduce the size of the US nuclear arsenal to the “lowest possible number consistent with our national security” and below the levels called for under the Start II accord with Russia.

Source: Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times
, May 28, 2000

Use arms to defend Europe, Far East, Mideast, & Panama

Q: When would you use arms? A: When it’s in our national strategic interests. Europe is in our national strategic interests. The Far East is in our national strategic interests. Our own hemisphere is in our national strategic interests. The
Middle East-protecting Israel is in our national strategic interests. If somebody tries to block passage through the Panama Canal, I would make sure it remains open for trade. It’s in our interests to have a hemisphere that is peaceful and open for trade

Source: GOP Debate on the Larry King Show
, Feb 15, 2000

1968: Choice was avoid draft or sign up; I signed up

Numerous questions remain as to whether then-Congressman Bush used improper influence to obtain a coveted slot in the military reserve for his son that allowed him to remain stateside during the war. George W.'s official and oft-repeated version is that
he "heard there were pilot slots open" at a unit of the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Air Force Base, and simply "signed up to fly a single-seat F-102 Interceptor," which provided him with a deferment. "Your options either were to avoid the draft
or sign up," Bush acknowledged, "and I signed up."

Before enlisting, Bush took the Air Force Officers Qualification test. While scoring 25% for pilot aptitude on the screening test--"about as low as you could get and be accepted"--Bush scored 95% in
the "officer quality" section.

His Guard application form asked for "background qualifications of value to the Air Force." Bush wrote "None." On whether he was interested in an overseas assignment, Bush checked the box that said: "do not volunteer."

US military is key to preserving world peace

Outside of America’s borders the world is a freer and safer place [than when we grew up]. We must always remember the importance of a strong military, a strong United States of America, to preserve world peace.

Source: Powell Lecture Series, Texas A&M Univ.
, Apr 6, 1998

George W. Bush on Military Personnel

Physically sickened by US soldiers' actions at Abu Ghraib

On April 28, CBS News broadcast the first images from a prison named Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad. They showed naked Iraqi prisoners being subjected to disgusting and degrading abuse by the American soldiers assigned to guard them. George was nearly
physically sick to think that any American troops could have behaved in this manner. He was angry, too. "Laura," he said, "I have to know how this was ever allowed to happen and to make sure that it never happens again." There are times when the system
of command fails, when soldiers fail their junior officers, when junior officers fail their senior officers, and when senior officers and their layers of civilian leadership at the Defense Department fail. Hundreds of people in authority across the
system had not looked hard enough, had not done their duty. Suddenly the sacrifice, character, and hard work of more than 100,000 American troops in Iraq was being jeopardized by a few deranged men and women. It sickened and devastated both of us.

2004: Abu Ghraib was low point of presidency

In the spring of 2004, Don came to me with serious news. In defiance of their orders and military law, American soldiers had severely mistreated detainees at an Iraqi prison called Abu Ghraib. I felt sick, really sick. This was not what our military or
our country stood for. While the perpetrators were court-martialed, America's reputation took a severe hit. I considered it a low point of my presidency.

I also felt blindsided. Don had told me the military was investigating reports of abuse at the
prison, but I had no idea how graphic or grotesque the photos would be. When Don got word of the stories, he [offered to resign] as secretary of defense.

Don was serious about leaving. It was a testament to his character, his loyalty to the office, and
his understanding of the damage Abu Ghraib was causing. I seriously considered accepting his advice. But a big factor held me back: There was no obvious replacement for Don, and I couldn't afford to create a vacuum at the top of Defense.

Committed in 1999 to military buildup

A big job for the next president was figuring out the purpose of American foreign policy. In 1999, Bush attended 5 meetings with various Vulcans [of Condi Rice's team].

At the 1st Vulcan meeting in February 1999, Bush asked, "Is defense to be an issue
in the 2000 campaign?" The advisers said they didn't think it would. Bush said he wanted to make defense an issue. He said he wanted to transform the military, to put it in a position to deal with new & emerging threats.

To do that, the advisers said,
the military would need new equipment. Bush indicated he was willing to make that investment. Bush gave a speech at The Citadel in Sept: 1999: "I will defend the American people against missiles and terror," Bush said, "And I will begin creating the
military of the next century. Homeland defense has become an urgent duty." He cited the potential "threat of biological, chemical and nuclear terrorism. Every group or nation must know, if they sponsor such attacks, our response will be devastating."

Increased military pay by 4% per year

The President is committed to taking good care of our military personnel and their families. His fiscal year 2004 budget builds on pay increases of 4% or more in the last two budgets.
The budget funds a range of military pay increases from 2 to 6.25%, targeted by rank and years of service. These pay increases enhance our military’s ability to retain its most experienced, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

Source: 2004 Presidential website, georgewbush.com
, Aug 30, 2003

$400M for renovating and improving military housing

In 2002 President Bush made sure that there was an additional $400 million made available to improve military housing. The 2004 budget keeps the Department of Defense on track in its plan to eliminate inadequate military housing. 163,000 inadequate
housing units will be eliminated by 2007. The Bush Administration proposes to reduce average out-of-pocket expenses for military families living in local communities to zero by 2005. During 2003, such expenses will drop to 7.5% from 15.0% in 2001.

Source: 2004 Presidential website, georgewbush.com
, Aug 30, 2003

Focus on mobility and swiftness, not size of military

We must extend our peace by advancing our technology. We are witnessing a revolution in the technology of war. Power is increasingly defined not by size, but by mobility and swiftness. Advantage increasingly comes from information, such as the
three-dimensional images of simulated battle that I have just seen. Safety is gained in stealth and forces projected on the long arc of precision-guided weapons.

The best way to keep the peace is to redefine war on our terms. We have begun a
comprehensive review of the US military, the state of our strategy, the structure of our forces, the priorities of our budget. I have given a broad mandate to challenge the status quo as we design a new architecture for the defense of America. We will
modernize some existing weapons and equipment, a task we have neglected for too long, but we will do this judiciously and selectively. Our goal is to move beyond marginal improvements to harness new technologies that will support a new strategy.

Spend money on soldiers before sending them to hot spots

Q: What is the proper role for the military?

GORE: The US has to be strong in order to promote peace and stability. We need to make sure that our personnel are adequately paid and that their pay is comparable to the competition from the private sector.
I have supported the largest pay raise in many a year. I support another one now. I also support modernization of our tactical weaponry. I think one of the ways we’ve been able to be so successful in Kosovo and other places is by having the technological
edge. Now, readiness. I propose $100 billion for this purpose.

BUSH: We have an opportunity to use the great technology of the United States to make our military lighter, harder to find, more lethal. We have an opportunity to keep the peace. I’m going
to ask the secretary of defense to develop a plan so we’re making sure we’re not spending our money on political projects, but on projects to make sure our soldiers are well-paid, well-housed and have the best equipment in the world.

Gays in military OK; “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” OK

Q: Do you support the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military?

A: I support the current ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy crafted by General Colin Powell regarding homosexuals in the military. We are blessed and
fortunate to have had so many men and women fight so valiantly for our liberties in America. I respect and admire anyone who has served in any branch of our military and put his or her life on the line for our freedom.

Source: Associated Press
, Sep 6, 2000

Better equipment, better training, and better pay

The world needs America’s strength and leadership, and America’s armed forces need better equipment, better training, and better pay. We will give our military the means to
keep the peace, and we will give it one thing more: a commander-in-chief who respects our men and women in uniform, and a commander-in-chief who earns their respect.

Source: Speech to Republican National Convention
, Aug 3, 2000

$1B more for salary; $20B more for R&D for new weapons

Saying we have “asked our servicemen and women to do too much with too little,” Bush today promoted his agenda for rebuilding America’s military by improving troop morale and investing in research and development. “Even the highest morale is eventually
undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness. I make this pledge to our men and women in arms: As President, I will preserve American power for American interests. And I will
treat American soldiers with the dignity and respect they have earned.“

Invest in research and development by at least $20 billion over the next five years, 20% [of which] must be spent for purchasing next generation weapons.

Source: Press Release, “Improving Troop Morale”
, May 31, 2000

George W. Bush on Missile Defense

Moscow Treaty: cut 2/3 of nuclear warheads by 2012

Putin and I cooperated in securing nuclear materials. One of the biggest achievements emerged from our first meeting in Slovenia in 2001. I told Putin I planned to give him the required 6 months' notice that America would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty, so that we could both develop effective missile defense systems. He made clear that this wouldn't make me popular in Europe. I told him I had campaigned on the issue and the American people expected me to follow through. "The Cold War is
over," I told Putin. "We are no longer enemies."

I also informed him that America would unilaterally cut our arsenal of strategic nuclear warheads by 2/3. Putin agreed to match our reductions. We signed the Moscow Treaty, which pledged our nations to
shrink our number of deployed warheads from 6,600 weapons to 2,200 by 2012. The treaty amounted to one of the largest nuclear weapons cuts in history, and it happened without the endless negotiations that usually come with arms-control agreements.

OpEd: Putin considered missile defense a threat to Russia

There is now justified concern about Russian reactions to US aggressive militarism. That includes the extension of NATO to the East by Clinton in violation of pledges to
Mikhail Gorbachev, but particularly the vast expansion of offensive military capacity under Bush, and more recently, the plans to place "missile defense" installations in Eastern Europe. Putin is ridiculed for claiming that they are a threat to Russia.
But US strategic analysts recognize that he has a point. The programs, they argue, are designed in a way that Russian planners would have to regard as a threat to the
Russian deterrent, hence calling for more advanced and lethal offensive military capacity to neutralize them. A new arms race is feared.

Prompt Global Strike: reach anywhere in under an hour

Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the US in under an hour with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish American's reliance on its nuclear arsenal.

Although this
new super-bomb, to be delivered by Minuteman missiles, will not carry nuclear warheads, their destructive capability will be similar, as confirmed by the fact that the Moscow authorities demanded, and managed to include in the START 2 agreement, that the
US remove one of its nuclear warheads for each one of these missiles.

These new bombs, known as Prompt Global Strike (PGS), would be able to kill Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in a cave in Afghanistan, destroy a North Korean missile being prepared
for launch or attack an Iranian nuclear site, "all without crossing the nuclear threshold." The project had been initially undertaken by President George W. Bush, but it was blocked by protests from Moscow.

Missile defense protects America

Another way to help protect America in the long run is to continue with missile defenses.
We’ve got a robust research and development program that has been ongoing during my administration. We’ll be implementing a missile-defense system relatively quickly.

Source: First Bush-Kerry debate, Miami FL
, Sep 30, 2004

Missile defense for security, not for military advantage

During the 2000 campaign, President Bush said, “America’s development of a missile defense is a search for security, not a search for advantage.” The President is committed to developing effective missile defenses based on the best available
technologies, to be deployed at the earliest possible date. These defenses will be designed to protect our deployed forces abroad, all 50 States, and our friends and allies overseas.

Source: 2004 Presidential website, georgewbush.com
, Aug 30, 2003

Withdrew from ABM Treaty; now $9B for missile defense

In December 2001, following months of negotiations and discussions with Russia, the US provided a formal six-month notice that it was withdrawing from the ABM Treaty.
The President’s FY04 Budget provides over $9 billion to begin the deployment of defenses against long-range ballistic missile threats, including new interceptors to be deployed over the next two years.

Source: 2004 Presidential website, georgewbush.com
, Aug 30, 2003

Listens to Europeans on SDI, but “intent on the right thing”

As he talked with NATO leaders today, Bush was careful in many ways to project an awareness of European concerns about a missile defense shield, and a willingness to address them. Referring to European worries that the US was poised to go it alone on
several issues of common concern, Bush said, “Unilateralists don’t come around the table to listen to others and to share opinion.” He said any new approach to security must “include greater nonproliferation and counterproliferation efforts.” He vowed
to “reach out to Russian leaders,” indicating his recognition of the importance that some European leaders attach to Russian consent before a missile system is built.

But at the same time, Bush seemed to be serving notice that he planned to do what he
wanted to do, and that his intention in talking to European allies was largely to bring them around to his point of view, not to alter his own. “I’m intent upon doing what I think is the right thing in order to make the world more peaceful,” he said.

We owe it to humanity to get missile defense working

The 1st big meeting was with [Dick] Cheney at Blair House [U.K. official guest house]. Oddly Cheney manages to seem relaxed while at the same time emanating tension. And in a way straight warm-up man for Bush, who would later seem warm and friendly and
personable by comparison. On NMD [National Missile Defense], Cheney set out their concerns on Iran, Libya, Korea, Iraq. Blair said that if the capability existed to improve defence, we understood the reason for wanting to develop such a capability and
that nuclear and WMD were clearly concerns.

Bush was less subtle than Cheney in his response, said he appreciated the commitment to NATO and said the US was sick of having to do so much peacekeeping in the world.
Bush said he was pleased with some of the things Putin had been saying. He said that 'we owe it to humanity' to get a system that works and the ABM Treaty stops us doing it.

The defenses we build must protect us all: include allies

We must prepare our nations against the dangers of a new era. The grave threat from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons has not gone away with the cold war, it has evolved into many separate threats, some of them harder to see and harder to answer,
and the adversaries seeking these tools of terror are less predictable, more diverse.

With advanced technology, we must confront the threats that come on a missile. With shared intelligence and enforcement, we must confront the threats that come in
a shipping container or in a suitcase. We have no higher priority than the defense of our people against terrorist attack. To succeed, America knows we must work with our allies. We did not prevail together in the
cold war only to go our separate ways, pursuing separate plans with separate technologies. The dangers ahead confront us all. The defenses we build must protect us all.

SDI: think beyond Cold War, but convince Europe & Russia

Q: With the failure of the missile-defense test, are you still convinced we should move quickly to build a defensive shield?

A: Yes, we need to move ahead. I hope I can convince Mr. Putin and the Europeans. I talked to [Russian Foreign Minister Igor]
Ivanov about it, and I talked to him point-blank. I said here we are still trying to get out of a cold war mind-set. Please tell Mr. Putin I am willing to think differently. [Ivanov] talked about the new threats of outlaw nations, those are his words.

Source: Interview with Time Magazine, CNN.com/Time.com
, Aug 1, 2000

Post-Cold War: remove weapons & high-alert; build SDI

Two weeks before President Clinton travels to Moscow for a US-Russia summit, Bush called for unilateral reductions in America’s nuclear arsenal at the same time as the US moves ahead with a robust national missile-defense system.
Bush refused to say how many more weapons he would cut; nor did he say what the US could do to calm Russia’s fears of a new multibillion-dollar race to build anti-missile systems.

Bush accused Clinton and Gore of being “locked in a Cold War mentality.”
Bush said, “The premises of Cold War nuclear targeting should no longer dictate the size of our arsenal.” He also said the US should “remove as many weapons as possible from high-alert, hair-trigger status.”

Bush was hesitant to use the politically-charged word “unilateral” when calling for reductions, saying instead that the US should “lead by example,” and that he would “work closely with the Russians to convince them to do the same.”

Source: Carla Anne Robbins, Wall Street Journal, p. A4
, May 24, 2000

Russia: jointly reduce missiles; but no joint SDI

Bush offered as a precedent [for “leading by example” in nuclear diarmament] his father’s 1991 decision to unilaterally pull back all US short-range nuclear weapons from Europe and Asia, a move that was quickly matched and raised by
then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Notably, Bush shied away from another of his father’s 1991 proposals: that Russia join the US and its allies in building missile defenses, a move intended to overcome Moscow’s fierce objections to the program.
Bush said yesterday that his willingness to share technology would “depend on how Russia behaves.”

Bush’s proposal is still a significant break with many in his own party’s leadership, who argue that the US
can have missile defenses and maintain large numbers of nuclear weapons. It was a clear attempt to rebut recent charges by Clinton & Gore that Bush is trapped in Cold War thinking.

Source: Carla Anne Robbins, Wall Street Journal, p. A4
, May 24, 2000

SDI needed for defense against rogue states & terrorists

There’s broad agreement that our nation needs a new approach to nuclear security that matches a new era. When it comes to nuclear weapons, the world has changed faster than US policy. The emerging security
threats to the United States, to its friends and allies, and even to Russia, now come from rogue states, terrorist groups and other adversaries seeking weapons of mass destruction. It is time to leave the Cold War behind.
America must build effective missile defenses based on the best available options at the earliest possible date. It is possible to build a missile defense and diffuse confrontation with Russia. America should do
both. I will never reduce the levels of the nuclear stockpile of the US to a position where we jeopardize our safety and security. And no, I don’t support the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

George W. Bush on War on Terror

9/11: CIA missed something big, despite bin Laden PDB

On 9/11, I called a national security meeting. I started with a clear declaration. "We are at war against terror. From this day forward, this is the new priority of our administration." I received an update on the emergency response. Then I turned to
George Tenet. "Who did this?" I asked.

Tenet answered with two words: al Qaeda. Before 9/11, most Americans had never heard of al Qaeda. I had received my first briefing on the terrorist network as a presidential candidate.

The CIA had been worried
about al Qaeda before 9/11, but their intelligence pointed to an attack overseas. During the summer, I had asked the CIA to reexamine al Qaeda's capabilities to attack inside the US. In August, the Agency delivered a Presidential Daily Briefing that
reiterated bin Laden's long-standing intent to strike America, but could not confirm any concrete plans. "We have not been able to corroborate some of the sensational threat reporting, such as that bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft" the PDB read.

International observers called Guantanamo a "model prison"

Holding captured terrorists on American soil could activate constitutional protections. We decided to hold detainees at a remote naval station on the southern tip of Cuba, Guantanamo Bay. The Justice Department advised me that prisoners brought there ha
no right of access to the US criminal justice system.

At Guantanamo, detainees were given clean & safe shelter, three meals a day, a personal copy of the Koran, the opportunity to pray five times daily, and the same medical care their guards received.

Over the years, we invited members of Congress, journalists, and international observers to visit Guantanamo and see the conditions for themselves. Many came away surprised by what they found. A Belgian official inspected Guantanamo five times and
called it a "model prison" that offered detainees better treatment than Belgian prisons. "I have never witnessed acts of violence of things which shocked me in Guantanamo," he said. "One should not confuse this center with Abu Ghraib."

Careful legal review concluded waterboarding is not torture

At my direction, Dept. of Justice and CIA lawyers conducted a careful legal review. They concluded that the enhanced interrogation program complied with the Constitution and all applicable laws, including those that ban torture.

There were two
techniques that I felt went too far, even if they were legal. I directed the CIA not to use them. Another technique was waterboarding, a process of simulated drowning. No doubt the procedure was tough, but medical experts assured the CIA that it did no
lasting harm.

I knew that an interrogation program this sensitive and controversial would one day become public, [with] criticism that America had compromised our moral values. I would have preferred that we get the information another way. But the
choice between security and values was real. Had I not authorized waterboarding on senior al Qaeda leaders, I would have had to accept a greater risk that the country would be attacked. In the wake of 9/11, that was a risk I was unwilling to take.

Bush Doctrine: you're with us or you're with the terrorists

In the days right after 9/11, George W. Bush formulated the core of what would later become known as the Bush Doctrine. On Sept. 20, 2001, he put forward the elements of that doctrine in his speech to a joint session of Congress.

"We will starve
terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make,"
he said. "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the US as a hostile regime."

The president's point was it didn't matter why terrorists
were able to operate within your borders. If terrorists were active in your country, you either had to help crush them or we would do so, even if it required treating you as a hostile regime.

9-11: Never said "go shopping"; but "participate in economy"

After 9/11, some critics used Bush's call for a measured mobilization to attack him for supposedly telling Americans to "go shopping." In 2008, both McCain and Obama blasted Bush for urging Americans to "go shopping" rather than sacrifice for the common
good.

It was not Bush but Frank Pellegrini, a "Time" writer, who said it as he praised Bush's Sept. 20 speech. When Bush said, "I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy," Pellegrini wrote that what the president meant
was: "And for God's sake, keep shopping."

But Bush never actually said to "go shopping." The closest he ever came was in a Nov. 8 speech in which he said, "This great nation will never be intimidated. People are going about their daily lives, working
and shopping and playing, worshipping at churches and synagogues and mosques, going to movies and baseball games." To take this one brief reference and then pretend Bush's words can be reduced to simply urging people to shop is intellectually dishonest.

Enhanced interrogation never crossed line into torture

Of all the steps the Bush administration took post 9/11, no issue became as controversial as when the president--unbeknownst to me at the time--authorized the use of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) of high-value terrorist detainees.
These procedures have become controversial because they have been called torture.

So, are EITs torture? It's a ferocious debate that can be broken into two parts. The first is political. Democrats opposed EITs retroactively to score points.

The second part is the more central one: Do these techniques cross the line into torture? Some critics assume many of these techniques, waterboarding in particular, are violations of the Geneva Conventions. But there is a problem with that assumption:
They weren't.

The president never authorized torture. He did just the opposite by making sure the EITs did not cross the legal line into torture. What's more, EITs did help our intelligence agents gather critical information to thwart future attacks.

OpEd: pre-emptive strikes replace multinational cooperation

A dramatic shifts in of foreign policy was announced on June 1, 2002, when Bush told a West Point graduating class that their military careers would be shaped by a new doctrine that would focus less on multinational cooperation and more on preemptive
strikes carried out by the U.S. unilaterally:

"If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. Our security will require transforming the military you will lead--a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in
every dark corner of the world. And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives."

The "humble" foreign policy Bush had
promised us to pursue before he took office ended up buried beneath the ashes of the Twin Towers. The President's words at West Point announced the coming of a preemption doctrine that would be employed to justify the invasion of Iraq the following year.

9/11 Commission said secure north border; Bush secured south

The Bush administration permitted the formation of a high-level commission to investigate ways to improve security after 9/11. The commission recommendations were mostly ignored. For example, the commission recognized the importance of securing borders,
particularly the long and easily penetrated Canadian border. The Bush administration responded by shifting agents to the Mexican border, which was not a concern of the 9/11 commission, but is important to prevent a flood of immigrants.

Source: Hopes and Prospects, by Noam Chomsky, p. 28
, Jun 1, 2010

Why do they hate us? OpEd: we oppose Arab nationalism

Bush was probably genuinely puzzled when he asked, "Why do they hate us?" and his response that "they hate our freedom" may reflect what he learned at school. But the historical record provides more compelling answers. More than half a century before
Bush's plaintive query, Pres. Eisenhower expressed his concern about "the campaign of hatred against us" in the Arab world, "not by the governments but by the people." The reasons for the "campaign of hatred" were outlined by the National Security
Council: "In the eyes of the majority of Arabs the US opposes the realization of the goals of Arab nationalism. They believe that the US is seeking to protect its interest in Near East oil by supporting the status quo and opposing political or economic
progress." Furthermore, the perceptions are accurate: "Our economic interests in the area have led to close US relations with elements in the Arab world whose primary interest lies in the maintenance of the status quo," blocking democracy and development

2001: We will not tire,we will not falter & we will not fail

In Bush's speech to the joint session of Congress in September 2001, (which has become known as the "We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail" speech) the president laid out his plan to defeat Al
Qaeda and its allies, and then went on to introduce the idea of a new position and the person who would fill it. "Our nation has been put on notice: We are not immune from attack. We will take defensive measures against terrorism to protect
Americans. Today, dozens of federal departments and agencies, as well as state and local governments, have responsibilities affecting homeland security.
These efforts must be coordinated at the highest level. So tonight I announce the creation of a cabinet-level position reporting directly to me--the Office of Homeland Security."

Geneva Convention does not apply to Al Qaeda detainees

"The war against terrorism is a new kind of war. In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."--Alberto Gonzales, memo to Pres. Bush, Jan.
2002

"To be considered torture, techniques must produce lasting psychological damage or suffering 'equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.' "--
Justice Dept. memo, 1/9/02

"Geneva does not apply to our conflict with al-Qaeda; al-Qaeda detainees also do not qualify as prisoners of war."--George W. Bush, memo, 2/7/02

OpEd: color-coded terrorism alerts play on fear

David Frum, charged with writing a draft speech justifying the Iraq War, consulted several of Roosevelt's great speeches. Frum noticed how FDR repeatedly mentioned the multiple menace of the Axis powers--Hitler, Mussolini, the Tojo.
This was the inspiration for Frum/Bush's declaration that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were an "axis of evil." The only problem was that the World War II Axis was a genuine military alliance; Iran and Iraq were enemies, while
North Korea his little connection with either. Bush's Axis, unlike Roosevelt's, was a fiction.

If Roosevelt's credo was "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," Bush's might have been. "The only thing we have to use is fear itself."
The continually changing color-coded alerts that frightened Americans on the eve of the 2004 election faded to static orange when they were no longer politically useful.

Signing statement: We will decide what is torture

The administration sought to justify torture and to somehow provide a legal rationale for the sadistic activities conducted in the name of the American people.

The uproar caused by the disclosure of this legal analysis forced the administration to
claim it was throwing out the memo and to dismiss it as irrelevant and over-broad, but the administration still refuses to acknowledge that the memo's original audacious claims that the president can ignore the law are just wrong.

Congress enacted the
McCain Amendment by overwhelming, veto-proof majorities. Rather than see his veto overridden, the president signed the law but simultaneously issued a signing statement indicating that he would not be bound by the new law. The statement declared that the
McCain Amendment would be "construed" to make it "consistent with" the president's power as head of the unitary executive and as commander-in-chief and also in light of the "constitutional limitations on the judicial power."

OpEd: Failed to know Al Qaeda enemy, like UK did with Hitler

Those of us who wanted to know the enemy in 2001 were denounced by the braying conservative talking heads as appeasers, akin to Neville Chamberlain. To the contrary, Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler supported our very point:
He had failed to know his enemy.

At this writing, President Bush often points to the words of Osama bin Laden as proof that we need to wage endless war in Iraq, but in September 2001
those of us who wanted to know what drove bin Laden's rage against us were looked upon with suspicion.

Bin Laden had talked extensively about 3 grievances: American military bases the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, in his native Saudi Arabia;
the plight of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank; and the misery of the Iraqi people living under UN sanctions.

OpEd: Resisted 9-11 investigation exposing administration

Imagine that terrorists hijack 4 commercial jets, crash them into building, kill nearly 4,000 Americans, and the government does not immediately launch an investigation?

People forget that the only reason we had an investigation into September 11, as
flawed and incomplete as it was, is that the families of the victims demanded it. They demanded it for more than a year before they managed to overcome the president's resistance to opening u his government to scrutiny.

The September 11 families wanted an official account of what happened, how it happened and why. Most Americans did.

Congress mandated an investigation. In a July 2003 interim report the commission complained that
President Bush was resisting its investigation while publicly pledging good faith and cooperation. By October of that year, the commission resorted to issuing subpoenas for documents.

9/11: The people who attacked us will hear from us soon

After the 9/11 memorial service in Washington, Hillary went to New York, as did Bush. At Ground Zero, Bush made his iconic appearance, rallying rescue workers and telling the crowd through a bullhorn, “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you.
And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” Hillary stood nearby and cheered the president’s vow.

Source: Her Way, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta, p.235
, Jun 8, 2007

Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists

On September 20, Pres. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress. He formally identified Al Qaeda as the perpetrator of the September 11 attacks. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists,” Bush declared. “From this day forward, any nation
that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the US as a hostile regime.” Nearly a dozen times during the speech, cameras showed Hillary rolling her eyes, clapping without enthusiasm, or shaking her head while occasionally guffawing.

Source: Her Way, by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta, p.235
, Jun 8, 2007

OK to waive torture ban if terrorist attack prevented

President Bush has issued signing statements on more than 750 new laws, instructing federal agencies on his interpretation of Congressional laws. Example:

Military lawyers subject to White House legal conclusions

Oct. 29, 2004: Defense Dept. personnel are prohibited from interfering with the ability of military lawyers to give independent
legal advice to their commanders.

Bush’s signing statement: All military attorneys are bound to follow legal conclusions reached by the administration’s lawyers in the Justice Department and the Pentagon when giving advice to their commanders.

OpEd: Clinton told Bush that biggest threat was al Qaeda

During the transition, Clinton personally told Bush that "by far your biggest threat is bin Laden and al Qaeda," and Sandy Berger (Clinton's national security adviser) told Condi Rice that she would spend more time on bin Laden and al Qaeda than on
anything else. But despite these warnings, or maybe because of them, the Bush team decided to shift its focus to missile defense.

In fact, Condi Rice was scheduled to give a speech on this very topic on September 11, 2001: Rice's speech was intended
to address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday." But the text of the speech, which was never delivered, contained not one word about the actual threat of "today," which, as became clear that day, was al Qaeda.

The Bush administration has never allowed the full text of that speech to become public, even though it would have been public if she had been able to deliver it. My guess is that it's being withheld on "national security grounds."

For long-term peace, end conditions that feed radicalism

In the long term, the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror,
and that terror will stalk America and other free nations for decades. The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom.

Our enemies know this, and that is why the
terrorist Zarqawi recently declared war on what he called the “evil principle” of democracy. And we’ve declared our own intention: America will stand with the allies of freedom to support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond,
with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. Because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace.

Saddam Hussein now sits in a prison cell and we are safer

75% of known Al Qaida leaders have been brought to justice. The rest of them know we’re after them. We’ve upheld the doctrine that said if you harbor a terrorist, you’re equally as guilty as the terrorist. The Taliban are no longer in power. Ten million
people have registered to vote in Afghanistan. In Iraq, we saw a threat, and we realized after 9/11, we must take threats seriously, before they fully materialize. Saddam Hussein now sits in a prison cell. America and the world are safer for it.

Source: First Bush-Kerry debate, Miami FL
, Sep 30, 2004

Stay on the offensive and spread liberty to defeat terrorism

This nation has got a solemn duty to defeat this ideology of hate. And that’s what they are. This is a group of killers who will not only kill here, but kill children in Russia, that’ll attack unmercifully in Iraq, hoping to shake our will. We have a
duty to defeat this enemy. We have a duty to protect our children & grandchildren. The best way to defeat them is to never waver, to be strong, to use every asset at our disposal, to constantly stay on the offensive and, at the same time, spread liberty.

Source: First Bush-Kerry debate, Miami FL
, Sep 30, 2004

Make sure we keep weapons out of the hands of Al Qaida

We’re facing a group of folks who have such hatred in their heart, they’ll strike anywhere, with any means. And that’s why it’s essential that we have strong alliances, and we do. That’s why it’s essential that we make sure that we keep weapons of
mass destruction out of the hands of people like Al Qaida, which we are. But to say that there’s only one focus on the war on terror doesn’t really understand the nature of the war on terror. Of course we’re after Saddam Hussein -- I mean bin Laden.

Source: First Bush-Kerry debate, Miami FL
, Sep 30, 2004

We have to be right 100 percent of the time to fight terror

We have to be right 100 percent of the time. And the enemy only has to be right once to hurt us. We’ve also changed the culture of the FBI to have counterterrorism as its number one priority. We’re communicating better.
We’re going to reform our intelligence services to make sure that we get the best intelligence possible. The Patriot Act is vital - is vital that the Congress renew the Patriot Act which enables our law enforcement to disrupt terror cells.

Source: First Bush-Kerry debate, Miami FL
, Sep 30, 2004

We have tripled the amount of money on homeland security

BUSH: My administration has tripled the amount of money we’re spending on homeland security to $30 billion a year. My administration worked with the Congress to create the Department of Homeland Security so we could better coordinate our borders & ports.
We’ve got 1,000 extra border patrol on the southern border; want 1,000 on the northern border. We’re modernizing our borders. We spent $3.1 billion for fire & police. But the best way to protect this homeland is to stay on the offense.

KERRY: We just
read on the front pages of America’s papers that there are over 100,000 hours of tapes from the FBI unlistened to. On one of those tapes may be the enemy being right the next time. And the test is not whether you’re spending more money. The test is, are
you doing everything possible to make America safe? We didn’t need that tax cut. America needed to be safe.

BUSH: Of course we’re doing everything we can to protect America. I wake up every day thinking about how best to protect America. That’s my job.

You cannot change positions in the War on Terror

BUSH: The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at. When I stood up there and spoke to the Congress, I was speaking off the same intelligence he looked at to make his decisions to support the authorization of force.

KERRY: I wasn’t misleading when I said Saddam Hussein was a threat. Nor was I misleading on the day that Bush decided to go to war when I said that he had made a mistake in not building strong alliances and that I would have preferred that he did more
diplomacy. I’ve had one position, one consistent position, that Saddam Hussein was a threat. There was a right way to disarm him and a wrong way. And Bush chose the wrong way.

BUSH: You cannot change positions in this war on terror if you expect to win. And we have a duty to our country and to future generations of America to achieve a free Iraq, a free Afghanistan, and to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction.

Win the war on terror by spreading freedom

BUSH: I understand the stakes of this war on terror. I understand we must find Al Qaida wherever they hide. We must deal with threats before they fully materialize. And Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that we must spread liberty because in the long run,
the way to defeat hatred and tyranny and oppression is to spread freedom. In the long term a free Iraq, a free Afghanistan, will set such a powerful in a part of the world that’s desperate for freedom.

KERRY: I am determined for those soldiers and for
those families, for those kids who put their lives on the line. That’s the most noble thing that anybody can do. And I want to make sure the outcome honors that nobility. We have a choice here. I’ve laid out a plan by which we can be successful in Iraq:
with a summit, by doing better training, faster, by cutting - by doing what we need to do with respect to the UN and the elections. There’s only 25 percent of the people in there. They can’t have an election right now. Bush’s not getting the job done.

Bush says Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to war on terror

On Feb. 7, 2002, the President issued a memorandum stating that he determined the Geneva Convention did not apply to the conflict with al Qaeda, and although they did apply in the conflict with Afghanistan, the Taliban were unlawful combatants and
therefore did not qualify for prisoner of war status. Nonetheless, [senior officials’ were all in agreement that treatment of detainees should be consistent with the Geneva Conventions. The President ordered accordingly that detainees were to be treated
“humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.”

In the summer of 2002, the Counsel to the President [requested a definition of torture]:
In order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain and suffering that is difficult to endure.

OpEd: Pushing Mideast democracy yields dictatorships

In 2003 [Bush said we would] help Iraq to establish a "democratic country in the heart of the Middle East," because, by doing so, "we will defend our people from danger." But not only must Iraq embrace democracy. So, too, must Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and
Pakistan, which have been laggards in joining the world democratic revolution:

"The United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy idealism we have shown
before. And it will yield the same results."

"Yield the same results"? Is Bush aware that when Jimmy Carter pressured the shah to democratize, the shah was overthrown and Iran fell to the Ayatollah? Can the president believe that by hectoring and
destabilizing autocracies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, we are made more secure? Previous popular revolts in the Arab world gave us and the world Nasser, Khadafi, Assad, Saddam, and the Ba'ath Party.

Clarke: Bush wants homeland security but did not fund it

Regrettably, the Administration sought to do homeland security on the cheap,
telling Tom Ridge that creating the new department had to be ‘revenue neutral,’ jargon for no new money to implement the largest government reorganization in history.

Source: Against All Enemies, by Richard Clarke, p.253
, Mar 23, 2004

It’s false hope to think that terror is behind us

Our greatest responsibility is the active defense of the American people. 28 months have passed since Sept. 11, 2001-over 2 years without an attack on American soil-and it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us. That hope is understandable
and comforting-and false. The killing has continued in Bali, Jakarta, Casablanca, Jerusalem, Istanbul and Baghdad. The terrorists continue to plot against America and the civilized world. And by our will and courage, this danger will be defeated.

Source: 2004 State of the Union address to joint session of Congress
, Jan 20, 2004

Terrorists declared war on us-terrorism is beyond a crime

Some people question if America is really in a war at all. They view terrorism more as a crime, a problem to be solved mainly with law enforcement and indictments. After the World Trade Center was first attacked in 1993, some of the guilty were indicted
and tried and convicted and sent to prison. But the matter was not settled. After September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the US. And war is what they got.

Source: 2004 State of the Union address to joint session of Congress
, Jan 20, 2004

Concedes no evidence of Saddam ties to 9-11

Bush conceded there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11-disputing an idea held by many Americans. “There’s no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaeda ties,” the president said.
But he also said: “We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept 11” attacks. Yet a new poll found that nearly 70% of respondents believed the Iraqi leader probably was personally involved.

Created “Ready campaign” and Ready.Gov

Introduced the Ready campaign, a national multimedia public information program designed to build citizen preparedness by giving Americans the basic tools they need to better prepare themselves and encouraging them to “Be Ready.”
Since its launch, Ready.gov has become one of the most visited sites in America.

Source: 2004 Presidential website, georgewbush.com
, Aug 30, 2003

Initiated reorganization of homeland defense

President Bush initiated a comprehensive reorganization of the border agencies as well as other administrative measures to increase departmental services and capabilities to better protect our borders and facilitate legitimate travel and commerce.

Source: 2004 Presidential website, georgewbush.com
, Aug 30, 2003

Increased security of critical infrastructure

The Department of Homeland Security has provided for increased security at critical facilities for water supplies, power plants, bridges, and subway systems, reducing the chances of an attack that could disrupt our daily life or the economy.

Source: 2004 Presidential website, georgewbush.com
, Aug 30, 2003

“Axis of Evil” means US uses strength without remorse

[I am the speechwriter credited with the term “Axis of Evil.”] I have my own theory as to why the “axis of evil” phrase provoked so much resentment at home & abroad. The rationalization on which the appeasers had agreed was the fiction that the mullahs
were “liberalizing.” The “axis of evil” speech directly challenged this fiction. By identifying the Iraqi and Iranian regimes with the Axis of the 1940s, and by naming this fascism for what it was, Bush shamed those who had done business with it-and
their shame expressed itself as indignation against the shamer.

In the1970s and 1980s, those who oppose American power consoled themselves with the thought that American culture and power were declining, that the US was just another great power fated
to rise & fall. With the “axis of evil” speech, Bush served notice to the world: He felt no guilt and no self-doubt. In Afghanistan, the US had discovered its true strength. Now, Bush was announcing that this strength would be used without remorse

Pro-Muslim post-9-11 message failed

As September 11 receded, American Muslim opposition to the war grew and intensified. By May 2002, almost half of American Muslims opposed the US involvement in Afghanistan. One-third now regarded the war on terrorism as in reality a war on Islam.
After his September 17 mosque visit, Bush had asserted that America’s Muslims “love this country as much as I do.” To conservative eyes, that increasingly looked like wishful thinking at best, willful blindness at worst.

In early 2002, after months of relentless pro-Muslim messaging, [polls showed that Muslims still overwhelmingly opposed the war on terror]. Bush had swept 88% of the Muslim vote, but did not do so because of his socially conservative policies.
Bush seldom won even as much as 35% of the votes of other socially conservative immigrant groups. What made this one constituency an exception to the usual rules of American politics? Only this: Al Gore’s decision to put a Jew on the Democratic ticket.

Largest increase in defense $ in two decades: never too high

Our first priority must always be the security of our nation, and that will be reflected in the budget I send to Congress. My budget supports 3 great goals for America: We will win this war, we will protect our homeland, and we will revive our economy.

It costs a lot to fight this war. We have spent more than a billion dollars a month-over $30 million a day-and we must be prepared for future operations. Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons defeat the enemy and spare innocent lives,
and we need more of them. We need to replace aging aircraft and make our military more agile to put our troops anywhere in the world quickly and safely.

Our men and women in uniform deserve the best weapons, the best equipment and the best training
and they also deserve another pay raise. My budget includes the largest increase in defense spending in two decades, because while the price of freedom and security is high, it is never too high. Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay.

Source: State of the Union speech to joint session of Congress
, Jan 29, 2002

9-11 attack was an act of war by Al Qaeda

On Sept. 11, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars. But for the past 136 years they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war.
But not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks. But never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day.
And night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.

Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, "Who attacked our country?" The evidence we have gathered all pointed to a collection of loosely
affiliated terrorist organizations known as Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.